Coverage of the Hickory Crawdads baseball team

April 2016

Entering the season, Hickory Crawdads pitcher Erik Swanson was expected to work in a tandem arrangement with teammate Wes Swanson in the starting rotation. After a couple of turns through the rotation, that arrangement, for now, has been put on hold, due to an injury to another starting pitcher, Dillon Tate.

After a tough outing in the first start after he was spun off from tandem-mate Wes Benjamin (4.2 IP, 8 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 6 K), Swanson allowed three hits and struck out a career-high eight batters over seven innings – also a career high – as the Crawdads defeated the Lexington (Ky.) Legends 6-2 Friday night at L.P. Frans Stadium.

“With Tate out the past couple of starts, we kind of had to step up,” said Swanson after the game. “Wessey and I try to at least go those five or six innings to help our bullpen a little bit. Keep the pitch count down, and tonight I felt like I was attacking with the fastball, which helped me out with the pitch count a little bit and got the job done.”

The big right-hander out of Iowa Western CC was able to hold up his end of the bargain where innings were concerned, as he was able to pitch effectively to contact, or power up if need be. Of the 24 batters Swanson faced, 16 of them saw four or fewer pitches during a single plate appearance.

“Getting ahead is the biggest thing,” said Swanson, who threw first-pitch strikes to 14 hitters. “You get strike one on them, that’s a game-changer right there. It throws them off a little bit and gives you momentum to either get that second or third-pitch ground ball, or even get that strikeout within the first three or four pitches.” Three of the eight strikeouts came on the third or fourth pitch of the at-bat.

For the most part, Swanson was able to stick with a 94-95 mph fastball (topped out at 98 mph) and changeup (89-90) combination that was more than enough to keep the Legends hitters off balance. The fastball was especially effective to right-handed hitters as consistently buried the pitch on the outside corner at the knees. The change had enough deception to miss bats. By my count it missed seven.

He brought a slider (84-86) into the mix starting in the fourth inning, if only to give the hitters another pitch selection to ponder at the plate.

Said Swanson, “I didn’t really bring out my slider until the fourth or fifth, which was when I threw it the most. Then, I think I threw it once or twice in the third inning, or maybe the second inning. I was trying to go fastball/ changeup and save that third (pitch) as long as I can.”

Perhaps the most impressive part of the outing was the final inning, during which he struck out two. After working the count full to the leadoff hitter (RH) Josh Banuelos, Swanson whizzed a 97 mph heater for a called third strike on the outside corner.

After RH hitter Ben Johnson worked a 3-1 count against him, Swanson rebounded with a 95 mph on the corner at the hands. Johnson stayed alive by fouling off a 97 at the ends, but succumbed to Swanson by flailing through a 97 mph buzzsaw away at the knees for the strikeout. Swanson then needed a final fastball away to get Xavier Fernandez tried to pull, but it went meekly to Yeyson Yrizarri for the 6-3 play.

Of the 16 pitches Swanson threw in the final inning, 11 of them were at 95 mph and above.

Swanson said, “I was feeling pretty good tonight, fastball wise. The arm felt great. Going out for that seventh inning, I knew I had to be getting close. I tried to empty the tank a little bit, but keep a little bit in there, in case I needed to go back out for the eighth if Mintz needed me to. Everything was working tonight, so it was good.”

What will be interesting to watch is how Swanson will be used over the next several months. After 38 total innings of relief work over the past two seasons combined, Swanson is already at 21 in 2016. But at 6-3, 220, he physically appears to be a guy that could handle what looks to be a much heavier total workload, giving the parent club Texas Rangers some options on how to handle that increased labor.

Tate will be back in the rotation soon – perhaps as soon as his next turn, which would be scheduled for Monday. However with Tate and Martin expected for promotions later in 2016, and the season-opening work of Crawdads No. 3 starter Jonathan Tate, as well as Pedro Payano bucking for a promotion after his one-hitter on Wednesday, there could be room for a longer stretch of starts later in the season. That is, until the Rangers pull back the reins on the number of innings Swanson is to throw.

RH Erik Swanson in a game earlier this season vs. Greenviille, (photo courtesy of Tracy Proffitt)

When one normally thinks of “speed guys” there is the image of a small-statured individual the scampers around the field. Eric Jenkins is not Lewis Brinson tall, but at 6-1, 170, he’s not a runt either. In chasing down balls in the gap, Jenkins has the appearance of a cheetah – a fast and sleek cat of prey that can quickly adjust its route if needed and take down its victim. In the games I’ve seen him play last summer and so far this year, I don’t recall seeing him dive. He’s just there, and if not, the wouldn’t be caught anyway.

Jenkins is an athlete. He was played some football and soccer at West Columbus High in Cerro Gordo, N.C., and can dunk a basketball.

He’s smart and learns quickly as takes in what is around him. In my time seeing him, Jenkins will make a mistake, but rarely the same one twice. Jenkins is also a humble kid. With a foundation instilled by his father Eric, Sr.- a man who spent 12 years in the Navy – one gets the idea that young Eric will not get too full of himself as he moves up into the majors– which he will some day.

I spoke to Eric just after the team arrived from spring training. Here is the feature article in the Hickory Daily Recordthat came from that interview. Below are other excerpts of that interview during which he talks about his first spring training, his expectations for the season, and adjusting to a faster pace of life in Charlotte.

Hickory Crawdads centerfielder Eric Jenkins was the Texas Rangers second round pick in 2015 out of West Columbus High in Cerro Gordo, N.C. (photo courtesy of Tracy Proffitt)

Well how was your first Spring Training?

Jenkins: It was pretty good – got a chance to play with some of the big league guys in a big league game. I’m just glad to be back in baseball play with some of my friends – I haven’t seen them in months. It’s been a pretty good Spring Training.

What was it like playing with the big league guys?

Jenkins: I mean I loved it – Big league guys are so nice, they treat you like their own kids and stuff. They pay you with respect and that’s what I like about them. And I learned a lot from them from asking questions about what to do and not to do in the big leagues – it was a pretty cool experience.

What did you learn most in your first, as far as what to do & not do in the big leagues?

Jenkins: Be yourself. Don’t do nothing that you’re not capable of doing. Just play to your strengths and you’ll be fine.

Who did you connect with big league wise?

Jenkins: I talked with Delino DeShields and James Jones – the centerfielders. Mostly the fast guys, cause I’m fast.

What did they teach you as far as speed and using that maybe in your game?

Jenkins: Use your speed to your advantage. They told me to practice on bunting –that’s going to play a huge role in my career as I move up in the big leagues-move up in the affiliates and just be yourself and play to your advantage.

Did you get to play for Banister?

Jenkins: Yes, sir

How was he to play for?

Jenkins: It was pretty cool. There was one game that I got in the seventh inning and we were down 11-9 and I came up and hit a lead-off triple. And then Ryan Strausborger came behind me and hit another triple and then Bobby Wilson came and hit a walk-off home run that won the game. That’s probably my best moment in Spring Training.

Is this all heady stuff from this time last year where you’re in West Columbus?

Jenkins: Not really. Coming from high school, I kind of know what to expect having to make a big adjustment to the competition, because when I was younger I used to always play above myself and my competition. So it’s kind of the way it got me now today, so it’s pretty cool.

What’s been the biggest adjustment?

Jenkins: Probably the pitch speed is the biggest adjustment and learning how to play in the outfield in different situations, where to be at with two strikes or whatever. Know your hitters.

But now everybody is as good as you – you’re a little bit on par now. How did you make that adjustment to now there are people who can hit as hard as you – and run as fast as you?

Jenkins: It comes from practicing a lot and you got to practice to your strength and your weakness in the off-season, and that’s what I did. I practiced speed work – practiced the little things because that’s what gets you big in life – practicing the really small things and that’s what I did.

Jenkins has eight steals this season through his first 16 games in 2016. (photo courtesy of Tracy Proffitt.)

Give me an example of a small thing that you had to work on in the off-season.

Jenkins: Learn how to be mentally strong in different situations – know when to go or not at different strike/ball counts – learn how to help your teammates in the outfield; move them, shift them wherever they be at – small things like that.

What is your expectation for this year?

Jenkins: I expect us to be a winning team like last year. I mean I know we gonna be young and good. The thing is, we got speed this year, like half of the lineup can steal bases and we can use that to our advantage this year. And its gonna be pretty cool coming off of winning a championship into the season.

Did you get your ring?

Jenkins: Yes, sir.

How was it?

Jenkins: It’s cool – it’s big, fat, shiny.

It’s got your name on it?

Jenkins: Yes sir – Jenkins.

Does that make you hungry for bigger and better things?

Jenkins: Yes, sir. I want another one.

It’s going to be a different team this year where a lot more speed this year and maybe not the big boppers that you had last year in with Tendler & Trevino – talk about how that’s going to be different this year.

Jenkins: This year we don’t have any big power hitters like that. But as long as we execute lines, execute your plays we’ll be fine and play as a team.

How are you maybe more attuned to the game now even than when you were here last August and September?

Jenkins; Last year when I caught up it made me a more humble person into the game right now, made me stay calm and become a man on my own in life. That’s probably it.

You moved to Charlotte

Jenkins: Yes, sir

What was the purpose of moving to Charlotte?

Jenkins: My family wanted to be around more things like Carolina Panthers football and Charlotte Knights – they want to see Charlotte baseball , more festivities around there.

Maybe for you to grow up a little bit, maybe?

Jenkins: Yes, sir. See what it’s like to be a city boy. I have always been a little country boy in a small town.

What have you learned so far being in the city versus being in the country?

Jenkins; I really didn’t learn anything because I only stayed there two days and then had to fly to Arizona for spring training. So I only stayed there one day, so I haven’t been home lately. I get to go home tomorrow because it’s an off-day get to be with family and the new house.

Now is your family moving out with you or did you just move here by yourself?

Jenkins: My family moved out with me

Do you still have to take out the trash at home and do the chores at home?

Jenkins: Yes, sir – have to do all that. I’ve got to clean my room, clean the bathroom. Just the same things I did as a little kid.

So it doesn’t matter that you are a second round draft – you still have to do that?

Jenkins: Yes, sir – can’t get big headed. Still respect my parents.

Now I’ve met your dad and he seems like the kind of guy that’s gonna keep you humble.

Jenkins: Yes, I think by him being in the military for 12 years he’s kind of hard on me and stuff all the time. He was 12 years in the Navy. I think that played a huge role in my life where I’m at today. That’s what I love about him – he’s always hard on me – sometimes I don’t like it, but it’ll pay off in the long run.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve learned so far as a pro?

Jenkins: I’ve learned how to be more professional on the field and off the field – represent yourself as a professional – do professional things – that’s about it.

So what does that mean, “do professional things”? So give me something that you do that’s a professional thing versus something you might do in high school.

Jenkins: Like help the elderly people out – do good things, not bad things, because growing up I never did bad things. I thank my dad for that. Always do the right thing at home and everything will be all right and put God first.

Do you have to take care of yourself more now than when you did in high school?

Jenkins: Yes, now I’m in pro ball I’m kind of on my own now, because back when I was in high school I had my high school coach and friends, my family behind my back. But now I’m kind of on my own right now, but still have support from my family and friends

Do you have to go to bed at a decent hour?

Jenkins: Decent hour about 10:30 or 11:00.

No video games at all night now?

Jenkins: Yes, I still play video games (one of my pet peeves right there-ha,ha) I never really got a chance to watch TV in Arizona cause I’m always busy at spring training, but now I can do that.

I had planned this blog post even before the news of the past week that involved Eduard Pinto, his fiancée Maria and their now-late son Gael. For me, that news and the response by the Crawdads-Rangers affiliated community makes this post even more necessary to write.

Since I began my tenure with the Hickory Crawdads as an employee, and then after that ended, a current stint as an official scorer/ newspaper beatwriter, I have understood more and more over the past 12 seasons that baseball folk are really and truly a special breed. The outpouing of support for the Pintos is just the latest example of kindness, caring, family-like – or what should be family-like – love and brotherhood (and sisterhood) that happens in the game.

Indeed, if the rest of society were to mimic the actions that play out every day around the baseball diamond, our world would be a better place to live. What are those actions? Here are a few I see constantly:

Learn a stranger’s name and remember it. You might need it later:

Unknowingly, I got my first taste of this on Labor Day 2004, the final day of the Hickory Crawdads regular season. My family and I got comp tickets in the section behind home plate and we sat in an area near some scouts. As the game progressed, I looked over the shoulder of an older gentleman – he appeared to be in his 70s – and the work he was doing, and I happened to see him wearing a very large ring.

During a half-inning break, I asked the gentleman about the ring and it was then I saw the interlocking letters “STL” on the stone. He took it off and let me hold it to have a better look. It was a 1985 National League Championship ring. (Sadly, it should’ve been a World Series ring, but lest I digress…) The gentleman couldn’t have been kinder to me and we talked the remainder of the game.

Flash forward some eight months later: I’m now an employee of the Crawdads and I’m walking from the parking lot to a gate on the first-base side of the stadium. Suddenly across the parking lot, I hear, “Mark! Mark!” I turned and saw an older gentleman – he appeared to be in his 70s – that knew who I was, but for the life of me I didn’t know why. He then showed me his ring with the interlocking STL lettering on the stone. The proverbial scales then dripped from my eyes and I remembered who he was.

Here was a man that traveled the country to see ballgame after ballgame, seeing and encountering name and face after name and face. Yet, he remembered MY name.

It may sound mushy and overly sentimental, but it always feels special when a Rangers rover comes through and calls me by name when I see them each season.They see and meet so many people in their line of work, but every time I see them in the clubhouse, they call me by name and ask me how things are.

What if we took the time to pay enough attention to the people that we encounter to actively learn and later remember their name?

Keep the past in the past:

It happens prior to every game: the meeting at home plate. While the purpose is to exchange lineup cards and go over ground rules, for me there’s something that plays out here that very few people see.

The previous game may have had intense competition. The night before may have had heated words exchanged between mangers, or more so, between managers and umpires. Words that call into question the other’s parentage, or words that requests the other person do things anatomically impossible, or comments about various forms of animal excrement, etc. etc. Baseball is a slow, intensely personal, steam-building kind of game that leads to a climax of decisive action that determines wins and losses. It lends itself to moments that take people into realms of different personas than is normal for a particular person. Many times, the events of the day go home with you and eat at you.

But then, the next day arrives and a new game is played. The managers meet each other anew and shake hands and acknowledge the umpires and their role in keeping the competition fair. Jokes are told, smiles are exchanged and then a good-luck handshake and we begin again anew. It’s as if nothing happened at all before and we’re all friends again.

What if our encounters each day were such that we didn’t carry the baggage from previous days into them?

Secrets are meant to be secret:

Several things come to mind of which I will share two.

a) After the Travis Demeritte suspension in 2015, I asked his teammate Jose Trevino how the team reacted to the news of their teammate. Trevino’s response, “I’m not getting into any of that.” My follow-up question: “Are you guys mad, upset? How are the guys handling it?” Trevino: “I’m not going to say.”

b) I happened upon what was to be a closed-door “kangaroo court” in 2013. When manager Corey Ragsdale saw me, his only words were, “This stays here.” There were some juicy things, funny things, but it was between teammates and coaches and to this day they’ve stayed there.

The details of every encounter need not be spread publicly like in a schoolyard playground setting. In fact, the best way to be ostracized is to share secrets.

Everyone pulls tarp:

You know how you find out what kind of fellow employees you have? Watch how they approach tarp duty. Are they the first out there, or are they the last one’s slinking down the seating area toward the field – or worse yet, not even bother to show up until the thing is almost rolled away.Or even worse? They’ve gone to lunch during a threat of rain and aren’t at the park at all.

In a minor league baseball front office, everyone from the GM to the intern pulls tarp. It’s the one task that is the staff equalizer, but in doing it, you know whether or not your workmates have your back.

Yes, the grounds guy is in charge, and yes there are times a GM or sales person really does need to be in that sales call. But the tarp pull is the one task in which everyone gets dirty and nasty and wet and likely contracts every disease known to may from that thing. During a heavy thunderstorm, it’s the one task in which people are doing everything in their power to keep that large, flying-kite of a plastic parachute from soaring away; all the while praying their lives don’t end at that moment from a lightning strike.

Everyone should pull a tarp just once in a heavy rainstorm, and you’ll understand.

Baseball family is really a family:

You know what I’ll remember about the final game of the 2015 Sally League Championship series? People cared about me personally. Let me explain:

Two weeks prior to the start of the playoffs, I lost my full-time job unexpectedly. On what turned out to be the final game at Asheville that clinched the title for Hickory, I had an interview for a job that night. I went through the interview, then drove 90 minutes to Asheville in hopes of catching the final few outs. But I missed. So I show up and through the champagne-drenched celebrations, several players and coaches asked how my interview went. I didn’t think they even knew I had an interview. Though their joy in the accomplishment of a season-long goal, they gave enough of a damn to ask me about my life.

Baseball family is baseball family, not “family” family.

During the season, teammates with teammates and front office staff members spend much more time with each other than with their own families. You work out together, or make sales calls together, pull tarp or shag flies, eat meals or play cards in the clubhouse, listen to your boss rail about not making enough sales or listen to your manager about how much more you need to hustle.

Your baseball family requires a lot of you… but they expect you to be there for your family and go to great lengths to make sure you do. They want you to be at the birth of children, to say good bye to a grandparent, to attend weddings, to play with your kid on the field, etc. etc. Because a good baseball team or a great front office staff are ones that insist that their members take care of life at home. In doing so, they have better teammates and front office staff members.

As fun as baseball is, there’s an off day for a reason and there’s an offseason for one, too – to take care of the people that sacrifice your presence during the season.

Wonder what would happen if other lines of work did this, too?

Baseball people take care of their own:

Folks gave nearly 20K to the Pintos in just under 24 hours, but as shocking as that was, it really wasn’t a shock at all. As the saying goes, “That’s the way baseball go.”

The story about Eduard, Maria and Gael is that latest example about how the baseball community steps up to help a person in need. I’m guessing very few of the 335 people that donated to help the family had never even heard of Eduard or Maria, or Gael prior to Monday. All they heard was a baseball family member needed help and they gave. Because in baseball there are no strangers, just a friend you don’t know yet.

Outfielder Eduard Pinto was called to return to Venezuela on Wednesday as his expectant child with his fiancée Maria was born prematurely on Wednesday.

Their son, Gael, suffered from severe respiratory issues and eventually passed away on Sunday.

Members of the Crawdads Connection – which for those that don’t know serves as a support group for the players during the season – have organized a GoFundMe page to help Eduard and Maria with their expenses.

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